Division (2)

The early warning component shall deliver alerts and risk assessments of floods, forest fires and droughts.

The service shall be based on three main modules.

1. (a)

   The European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) providing flood probability forecasts for all European rivers. EFAS shall provide added-value early flood forecasting products and unique overview products of ongoing and forecasted floods in Europe more than 3 days in advance.

2. (b)

   The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) shall be a web-based geographic information system that provides fire danger forecasts up to 10 days in advance and near real-time and historical information on forest fires and their regimes in the European, Middle East and North Africa regions. Fire monitoring in EFFIS shall encompass the full fire cycle and the service shall provide information both on pre-fire conditions and post-fire damages. EFFIS shall be extended towards a Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS).

3. (c)

   The European Drought Observatory (EDO) shall be streamlined with other Copernicus EMS early warning modules. It shall use data from the meteorological data collection for EFAS and EFFIS and the outputs of the EFAS distributed hydrological model in terms of soil moisture and river flows. These products shall be then further processed into drought-relevant indicators and combined with satellite-based indicators on vegetation condition. The Global Drought Observatory (GDO) shall provide sector specific indicators of drought impact across the globe as well as targeted analysis reports for on-going droughts.